First Steps …

This past week, I watched my niece take her first random steps. Random because she didn’t notice she was walking the short distance from the coffee table to her grandmother until we chimed in – BRAVO! Heck, I barely noticed because as a family we can see and sense that she is ready to walk on her own. Her stability when she stands, her balancing act with her cute smile and clapping of the hands. Her slow and steady squatting to the ground. Physically she is ready. However, her little being still hesitates to let go of objects or our hands to take those first independent steps. As I watched her father encourage her to take some steps only holding one hand to support her (she always prefers two) it dawned on me …

When deciding to move forward or not with our hopes, dreams and goals in life. We are rarely as aware of our potential as an outsider looking in. We prepare our big steps with little steps. We require endless encouragement and support to take the bigger steps. We second guess ourselves and often fallback to the initial steps. All in all, some of us will wait for something magical to happen. Others, won’t move forward until we’re 100% sure we won’t fail. Another bunch will need additional support until we believe we can succeed on our own. Finally some of us will take a leap of faith. Knowing that if we fall, if we fail we can always bring ourselves back up. Knowing that if we fail, we can handle it. Knowing that whatever happens, at least we tried. We know what’s on the other side of fear. At least we took those initial steps to move us forward. However, each one of us, like babies learning to walk, requires a unique approach to dive and act to attain our personal goals. We need to allow our own sense of self to guide us in choosing our method. We might be able to jump. Trusting the net will appear. We might need additional support. Depending on our social circle for support. We might wait for every detail to be in place perfectly to move forward. We might have decided to wait for something else to happen first. Something that will prove that we are ready. Whatever it is, whatever it is we hope to accomplish, create or try, we will do it when we are ready. One thing we must always remember though, no one can do it for us.